Reasons I Started My Business

Goals For My Business

I started my business www.artscraftsandhobbies.co.uk an online art supply company as a way to build a good retirement income for my pension. I’ve completely lost all faith in the government to look after me in my retirement. I see the way they treat pensioners today, by the time I get there, things will be even worse. I don’t work in the public sector so I can’t look forward to a gold plated index linked pension. I paid into a private pension for almost thirty years but it started to become unstable after Gordon Brown’s tampering and I no longer have confidence in its sustainability. I have absolutely no trust whatsoever in the financial institutions of this country. Would you trust them? So I concluded that if I wanted to make a retirement pot than I had to do it myself.

Like you I’ve worked and paid taxes all my life, and like you I’m disappointed in the results. Being middle aged I was brought up in semi socialist Britain believing that the government would take care of all out needs. All we had to do was work and pay taxes. I was brought up to believe that loyalty was a good thing so I worked for the same company for years.

Then the ground changed. Loyalty was no longer valued. It now means nothing as a new breed of managers churned out from the business universities have come on the scene preaching a new doctrine of you do what you are told. Lean (or is that mean) manufacturing, more work for less pay. the government now tells us to save for our pension. yeah right, how does someone on the minimum wage save for a pension? And by the way I thought we already were saving for our pensions, isn’t that what national insurance is for?

So I decided it was time to take action. I had to reprogramme myself from all the belief systems I had instilled in me when I was growing up about trusting the government, trusting the banks etc. I decided I would invest in myself and build my own pension fund up. The question was how? It can’t be done by working for someone else and saving a little every week, yes you can build a fund up that way but it won’t amount to much and by the time the government has fleeced you for taxes there’s not much left to save.

Most people’s jobs just cover their living expenses, especially as wages have been driven down by mass immigration over recent years. I concluded the only way you can have a chance of building a fund is to start your own business. So after much thought I started my own business ArtsCraftsAndHobbies.
The objective of the business is to build up a pension fund for my retirement if and when i decide to retire. i do not want to be dependant on the government.

I am still in full time employment so I run my business alongside my full time job. An online business is perfect for this.

My goals are pretty simple. The first year I wanted to launch the business and begin trading. I wanted the business to be self-financing once I had invested the initial start-up money. all the profits would be reinvested into more stock building up my stock items to give customers more choice.
I’m glad to say that I am accomplishing these goals. The business is growing fast and I am building a good solid customer base with strong monthly sales.

it is i have to say a lot of work. Though very enjoyable. I have learned a lot over the last ten months about business and I have a lot to learn but I’m looking forward to it. I have lots of challenges ahead to reach my target turnover. I need to promote my website more, I will be posting about the plans I have for this over the coming weeks, I need to employ some direct marketing techniques. I need to get a small catalogue designed and printed. Lots of challenges in the coming months but I’m looking forward to them all.

at the moment things are looking good, my business is growing every month and there’s lots of potential for huge growth rates which i intend to exploit. November has been a busy month with sales coming in thick and fast testing the systems I have in place to deal with them. there’s no doubt that i need to find a better software system for dealing with sales to handle the next stages of business growth but it’s just another challenge I’m looking forward to dealing with. Anyway on with the adventure. Until next time.

8 Steps To Handling A Crisis

Ok it has to happen. Despite all he careful planning, despite it can’t happen to me attitude problems are a natural part of life and we have to deal with them. In business a problem ignored will inevitably grow to a crisis.

If we bury our head in the sand it will jump on our back. So let’s get real, let’s behave like adults and prepare for the unavoidable slings and arrows that will come our way sometime. We’ve got a crisis. Sales are falling, costs are rising, we’ve lost parcels in the post or the computer with all our business contacts on has just crashed out on us. You get the idea. It’s a crisis.

Who’s fault is it? Forget it, it doesn’t matter. We haven’t got time to form a circle and point at one another. Form a circle but make sure the rifles are pointing outwards. First we first with the problem. Once we have it sorted and the ship is back on an even keel we can look into what were the reasons involved in causing the crisis. Until then let’s deal with the problem.

1. What is the problem? Define it, write it down be clear about what the problem is. You should be able to write it down, there’s no room for vagueness, we need to know exactly what we are dealing with. How is it impacting on the business.

2. Get control. You are the leader of your business whether it’s a home based business that you run from your bedroom or a multinational. You are the boss, the commanding officer you have to show leadership. Stand tall and be confident. Wilting under pressure is for wimps.

3. Stay calm and logical. Get the facts. I used to love those old war films where a submarine had just been depth charged. Water is spraying everywhere; pipes are falling off, bodies are laid over the deck plates and the submarine is diving straight for the bottom and about to implode. Everyone is on the brink of panicing, then the captain, holding onto a rung of the metal ladder leading up to the conning tower calmly asks for the damage report. The calmness in his voice restores confidence. You are the captain. It doesn’t matter how fast the submarine is sinking get that damage report. If you haven’t got the facts you can’t provide solutions. Get the facts.

4. By now you should know what the problem is. You should have the facts to support your assessment of what has gone wrong. Write them down. Now think of solutions to the problem.

5. Deploy your solutions and monitor the results. Believe in your ability to deal with the problem. Listen to feedback from others but don’t let them sway you once you have made your decision to deal with the problem. You have by this stage, established what the problem is, what caused it, what affect it is having on the business and you have deployed your carefully thought out solution. Give it time to work.

6. Take relaxed decisions. Don’t be rushed, don’t be panicked. Whatever has gone wrong has happened, stressing out over it will not solve the problem faster. Sit down and relax a while.

7. Tell people what’s going on. If you employ staff keep them informed if you work from home tell your partner that you are having a problem. Don’t sulk and lock yourself in the office answering all questions in monosyllabic grunts.

8. Once the crisis is over assess what happened. Why did it happen? This is not a time for the blame game it’s a time for logically making decisions and implementing systems that will prevent the problem from recurring.

Pat yourself on the back you’ve arrested the descent of the submarine and you are rising fast to the surface.

Problems are unavoidable in business that’s what makes it fun. When they arrive at your door stay calm and work your way through the 8 point plan. You are the commander. You can lead your business out of it.

Things are hotting up as christmas approaches

Things are hotting up as Christmas approaches. The systems I’ve put in place over the year to help the business run smoothly are being pressure tested and I’m glad to say appears to be holding up. I had my best week last week and as I write this I have just had my best day since I started the business. My strategy for total customer care is paying dividends, many of my customers are people who have bought from me before and were happy with the product and the service they received.
As I mentioned my systems are holding up but there’s no doubt that I will have to make them more efficient before I embark on further growth next year. At the moment I’m too busy keeping things running to think about introducing new systems.
My biggest problem is ensuring I have the stock available for the orders or ensuring I can get hold of it fast when people order. Fortunately I have a good supplier who resupplies me within 48 hours on most of the stock I carry so I’m pretty relaxed about it. There was an instance last week when I received an order for an item that had gone out of stock. It had also gone out of stock at my suppliers.
There was nothing for it but to go searching for the item at a retail store. I managed to find one. I did lose a few pounds on the deal but considered it money well spent to keep a customer happy. At the end of the day it was down to my bad stock management that caused the problem in the first place so I put it down as paying to learn.
I’m just happy that things are going so well, it’s going to be a good Christmas if the last month is anything to go by.
See You Later

Newsletters

As my email subscribers to my monthly newsletter grows I have been searching around for a program that will allow me to write a good newsletter, format it and send it simultaneously to all my subscribers. I have a trial version of one program, which seems to be ok apart from the fact that there is no facility in the program for me to automatically send the newsletters to each of my subscribers while using their first names. I have to send the newsletters with a general “Hi” greeting. I like to talk to my subscribers personally by their first names so the lack of this feature is disappointing.

The program has however, drastically cut down the time I spent towards the end of every month getting my newsletter ready and sending it. I had been doing it by typing it up in word and pasting it into outlook along with the photos of the monthly offers. This was fine initially but as my list grows, it became very time consuming and I began to dread having to do it. Now that I’ve found one program, however there must be others out there. I intend to search them out until I find the right one for me.

I consider monthly newsletters an essential tool for staying close and personal with my customers. I usually always make some monthly sales through the newsletter, which is an added bonus and the main motivating factor in doing it. Things continue to be busy on EBay and I’ve been working hard producing a hard copy newsletter which I intend to test in the market in December. I’m excited by the monthly hard copy newsletter and see it as a source of extra monthly sales so getting it right is crucial. It will require a little trial and error before I hit on the magic formula but I’m prepared for that.

The monthly hard copy newsletter is going to be a small booklet with a little news and a number of offers listed. Once I get it right I intend to send it to my customers every month. The initial design is the difficult part and I have enlisted the help of my son in this, promising him some extra money for Christmas. As he is a student with no money, he jumped at the chance. Once I’m happy with the design I will store the template and producing the newsletter will not take much. Just a matter of a little writing and deciding what products to offer out for the month.

I see it as a crucial part of my planned business growth. When it’s ready I intend to test it carefully by sending it to one hundred customers to begin with and then monitor the response. Depending on the response, I may make some changes before sending it to another hundred, again waiting to see what response I get. Unlike the Email newsletter, there will be some costs involved in sending the hard copy newsletter like stamps, paper and envelopes but if I get the same response as I do from the email newsletter these costs will easily be offset by the returning sales.